Re: Redundant email floods

Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> Thu, 18 December 2014 16:28 UTC

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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:26:39 -0600
From: Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
To: John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com>
Subject: Re: Redundant email floods
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On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 10:48:39AM -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
> I hope this won't set off a long discussion, but, especially

You're kidding, right?  :)

> when I'm traveling and need to check email quickly during short
> breaks or equivalent, I'm becoming increasingly irritated with a
> side-effect of what is certainly well-intentioned increased
> communications.  Support I'm subscribed to a WG list, a document
> has gone into Last Call, and a new version is posted.  I get:
> 
> (1) A new I-D announcement on i-d-announce
> (2) A copy of that announcement on the WG mailing list
> (3) A "New Version notification" for the I-D
> (4) An IETF Secretariat ID Tracker State update notice
>      and, if I'm really lucky,
> (5) A note from the author, editor, or WG Chair that is
> basically a copy of the first and second, maybe with a change
> summary.

(5) could get folded into (1).  The submitter could provide text and any
additional lists to cc on the upload page that will be sent along with
the announcement in (2).

(3) could get folded into (1).
(4) could get folded into (1).

(2) is unavoidable for WG work items, I think, but the Message-ID should
be the same as in (1), and the two (or more) lists all be in the
announcement's distribution list, thus enabling duplicate detection in
your MUA.  And anyways, getting down from max 5 distinct notifications
to 2 (or a few more if multiple lists cc'ed), all with the same
Message-ID, would be a huge improvement, and perhaps the most you can
expect.

(Duplicate detection by the MUA is quite useful.)

> Is this bothering anyone else?  Can something be done about it?

"meh"

Once you're used to the noisiness...  (And there's so much noise that
you have to be.)  Someone will now come out of the woodwork to condemn
doing our business over e-mail (perhaps they'll propose web forums)...
I don't see how we could keep track of so many things with any other
technology, so I'll take all this extra noise, because with it comes all
the value of doing business over e-mail.

Nico
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